21 February 2020

Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Patient Pathway

Thank you for your recent work in planning for local responses to the Coronavirus outbreak.

I am writing today to provide the Novel Coronarvirus (COVID-19) Patient Pathway. 

The purpose of this document is to set out the minimum operating standards for each element of the patient pathway from identification of a possible COVID-19 case, through co-ordination of required steps and on to discharge. This is a live document which, will provide a single point of reference for the NHS and will be updated as the situation develops and contains links to national guidance and should be referred to when guidance is updated to ensure that the pathway remains intact with appropriate governance mechanisms in place.

We will continue to provide updates via EPRR structures and also through weekly webinars. The initial phase of the response to COVID-19 will involve the isolation of all individuals testing positive for COVID-19 within the High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID) network, with that network co-ordinating the response once a positive response has been confirmed by Public Health England (PHE).

This is part of the containment strategy to slow or halt any outbreak. Each local system must ensure it has a pathway in place that can deliver the minimum standards set out in this document from identification to discharge. These standards may be delivered in a way that best fits local and regional operating models.

Thank you all for your ongoing hard work.

Kind regards,

Professor Keith Willett, NHS Strategic Incident Director (Coronavirus)

NHS England and NHS Improvement

 

Download the patient pathway